My husband called me at midnight to tell me not to open the door… minutes later he swore he had never called me.

Finally he spoke, and the sound of his voice made my chest tighten.

“Where are you right now,” he asked, and although his voice was deep and familiar, it carried a tension that felt sharp enough to cut.

“I am at home,” I replied, glancing instinctively toward the hallway that led to my daughter’s room. “What is going on.”

There was another pause, longer than the first, and I checked the phone screen to be sure the call was still active.

“Are you alone in the apartment,” he asked quietly.

I looked around our small living room, where the lamp cast a warm yellow glow over the couch and the bookshelf, and where everything appeared painfully ordinary and safe.

“My daughter is asleep in her room,” I answered. “Why are you asking me this.”

He inhaled slowly, and when he spoke again, he did so with deliberate care, pronouncing each word as though he needed me to understand the weight of what he was about to say.

“I need you to listen to me very carefully,” he said. “Do not open the door for anyone tonight, do not turn off the lights, and if you hear someone calling your name, you must not answer them.”